Karen McCombie

Karen McCombie is described by Waterstone’s as ‘one of children’s fiction’s most accomplished authors’. Over the past two decades, she has written more than 100 books for major publishers, including Faber, Walker, Scholastic and Puffin. Karen’s books range from much-loved, bestselling series Ally’s World (Scholastic, early 2000s), to Carnegie-nominated, literary historical Little Bird Flies (Nosy Crow, 2019), to inclusive/dyslexia-friendly novellas for specialist publisher Barrington Stoke.

During Karen’s career, she has hugely enjoyed working with children in her role as a visiting school author, giving talks to whole year groups and running creative-writing workshops. Prior to becoming a children’s author, Karen worked as a magazine journalist, chief sub-editor and production editor, on titles such as teenage staple Just Seventeen and style bible Elle Decoration. The skill-set Karen learned during these years – how to write and edit to word counts and pressing deadlines – has served her well in her career as a children’s author, and she looks forward to sharing these skills with students she’ll be supporting in her role as a Fellow.

Karen is particularly thrilled to be working with students from the Health and Social Care Faculty of the London South Bank University. As the proud parent of a wonderful young adult with several significant health issues, Karen feels that the experience and training she gained while learning to support her son will allow her to bring empathy and understanding to the work of LSBU students. And Karen is very much looking forward to learning from the students too.